Kearny Street - The Chinamen Must Go!

I recall a mural about race riots in San Francisco. The mural is in the old post office - Rincon Center near Mission and Embarcadero. My memory of the explanatory mural sign is that the riot was related to building the transcontinental railroad. The tycoons building the railroad had decided Irish workers were getting uppity, so they were hiring more compliant Chinese workers at a lower wage. This did not sit well with the displaced Irish workers.

Searching the internet for this historical artifact, I find the San Francisco riot of 1877. But the Golden Spike, or Last Spike of the transcontinental railroad was driven by Leland Stanford in 1869. Apparently there was more than one riot in that bawdy gold-rush town. The 1877 riot is notable because a guy inspired by it got a street named after him. Denis Kearny, in the wake of the riots became politically active under the slogan "The Chinamen Must Go!"

Surprisingly, Richard Nixon also popped up in this search. According to Republican Hubert Scudder of Sebastopol, the mural artist had foisted upon the American taxpayer propaganda designed to slander the state's pioneers and convert patrons at San Francisco's main post office to communism. Of course, there was political hay to be made, and in 1949 the aspiring Richard Nixon weighed in: As to whether anything can be done about the removal of Communist art in your Federal Building [Rincon Annex] . . . at such time as we may have a change in administration and a majority in Congress, I believe a committee should make a thorough investigation of this type of art in government buildings with the view to obtaining the removal of all that is found to be inconsistent with American ideals and principles.

Fortunately, there was a trial. Richard Nixon was eventually removed from political life and the murals still exist. But along this path in history, The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prevented immigration of Chinese.